The Geomagnetic Apocalypse — And How to Stop It

[ffernan]

all I can say is:

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Entitled "Severe Space Weather Events — Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts," it describes the consequences of solar flares unleashing waves of energy that could disrupt Earth's magnetic field, overwhelming high-voltage transformers with vast electrical currents and short-circuiting energy grids. Such a catastrophe would cost the United States "$1 trillion to $2 trillion in the first year," concluded the panel, and "full recovery could take four to 10 years." That would, of course, be just a fraction of global damages.

Needless to say, shorting out the electrical grid would cause major disruptions to developed nations and their economies.

Worse yet, the next period of intense solar activity is expected in 2012, and coincides with the presence of an unusually large hole in Earth's geomagnetic shield, meaning we'll have less protection than usual from the solar flares.

The report received relatively little attention, perhaps because of 2012's supernatural connotations. Mayan astronomers supposedly predicted that 2012 would mark the calamitous "birth of a new era."

But the report is credible enough that some scientists and engineers are beginning to take the electromagnetic threat seriously. According to Lawrence Joseph, author of "Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization's End," "I've been following this topic for almost five years, and it wasn't until the report came out that this really began to freak me out."

Wired.com talked to Joseph and John Kappenman, CEO of electromagnetic damage consulting company MetaTech, about the possibility of geomagnetic apocalypse — and how to stop it.

[electromagnetic]

I personally love that people associate the end of the Mayan short calender (most people claim it as their predictive end of the world, when in reality their long calender ended millions of years in the future) with the end of the world. The Mayans associated the end of the short calender as a party, because a new b'ak'tun was to them like the new millennium was to us.

We're about to hit the 13th b'ak'tun, which some people claim is the end of the calender. However, it's generally regarded the count is supposed to go up to 19 b'ak'tun (they counted 0). Incidentally the end of the 20 b'ak'tun will be in the year 4,376.

What all the end of the world nuts are too ignorant to see when they obsess over these things, is that despite the end of their calender being thousands of years in the future, they'd already fixed the problem. There's four larger integers in their calender: piktun, kalabtun, k'inchiltun, and alautun. If the b'ak'tun is in fact a cycle of 20 then each of these are also a cycle of 20. This puts the end of the world about 400 million years away, which is probably very close to when the Earth will actually be uninhabitable as in about 1 billion years the sun will have gotten so hot that the oceans will have evaporated.

I give no credence to this guys argument, first he has no clue how the Mayan calender works, just like all doomsayers, they only see what they want. The fact that the earth hasn't ended in the 23 previous solar cycles that we've recorded, seems to lend credence that the 24th won't end it either. Just because it's the end of the Mayan short calender doesn't make it in the least bit more special.

My prediction, this is another load of bunk, just like the predictions that the world would end in 1999, 2000 and pretty much every year.

[russell]

We had a solar flare in 1859 of this magnitude. It caused telegraph wires to catch fire and would have fried the electrical grid, had we had electricity. Something like this could shut down civilization as we know it for years because replacement transformers and the like have multiyear lead times.

[ryanwaggoner]

What isn't clear from the article is why they have multiyear lead times...is it a materials or manufacturing constraint that can be overcome by incredibly desperate demand? Planes and bombs took a long time to deliver before WWII, but we needed them so badly that we converted factories and started cranking them out with remarkable efficiency.

Granted, it would be harder to do that without a proper power grid, but I sometimes wonder if people misjudge the ingenuity of our collective society in the face of monumental disaster.

[tlb]

Absolutely. In normal times power projects are planned years in advance so there's no reason for short lead times. But if the system was down, people would wind transformers by hand if they had to. It's not that hard.

It does seem lame that the power grid is so close to capacity. Instead of all this smart grid stuff that lets us get from 97% to 98%, let's just add 50% more capacity and have no worries.

[blogimus]

I'm pretty sure that the capacity problem is due in no small part to pollution control regulations, like the EPA effectively stopping new Coal power plants: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1859049,00.ht...

"The board's decision will force the EPA to consider CO2 when issuing permits for new power plants, potentially making it at least in the short-term all but impossible to certify new coal power plants. That's because the EPA will need to reconfigure its rules on dealing with CO2, which is found in greater concentrations in coal than any other fossil fuel"

About half of the U.S.'s electric power comes from coal:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/figes1.html

I'd love a cleaner world, we need it, but there are trade-offs we need to face.

Ask a Las Vegas area resident what he thinks of all the fresh water demands that the solar cells require because of cooling needs.

http://current.com/items/89979048_solar-power-and-water-issu...

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Want a nuke plants? where are you going to put them? and how long is it going to take to build?

So yeah, it's lame that the power grid is close to capacity. And yeah there are potential new and evolving energy supplies but the solution isn't so simple as "add 50% more capacity and have no worries."

To paraphrase Steve Yegge, "Have you increased the energy grid significantly and simultaneously reduced greenhouse gases ?"

[ubernostrum]

Of course, it's not all environmental.

I live in Kansas. There's a long-running feud going (several years now) over permits to build several coal-fired power plants in the western part of the state; the legislature keeps passing bills ordering the permits to be granted, and the governor keeps vetoing them (thus far the legislature's been unable to get enough votes to override her).

While various folks here love to complain that it's just some sort of environmental agenda being pushed by our (liberal) governor, there's a powerful economic reason to say no to these plants: although they'll be built in Kansas, although they'll use resources from Kansas, although they'll dump pollution into the air and water of Kansas, not one single watt of power from them will go to homes or businesses in Kansas (the plants, if they're built, will be built by out-of-state power companies to produce electricity which will be used elsewhere, mostly in Colorado).

Which raises a valid question: if Kansas is going to bear the cost of having these plants, why shouldn't Kansas get any of the benefits? They won't generate nearly enough jobs to cover the impact they'll have on the state in other ways, so I don't see how any sound economic argument can be made in their favor.

From what reading I've been able to do on the subject of power-plant construction, it seems Kansas isn't alone in facing this sort of situation. Though it may feel like a variation on NIMBY, I think it's entirely reasonable for one state to ask why it should bear costs while another reaps benefits, and to refuse to enter such an obviously one-sided deal.

[tlb]

I actually just meant increasing transmission lines & transformer capacity, since that's what's on the edge. But we should increase generating capacity too.

Increasing capacity doesn't increase usage. We should increase capacity to a comfortable margin, and separately think about reducing usage.

[russell]

I suspect the lead time is due to manufacturing capacity and probably large transformers are custom or semi-custom. But as you said amazing things happen when there is a civilization threatening crisis.

[blogimus]

This is especially interesting in the light that there is now a more concerted effort to get automobiles "on the grid"

Just for starters, see Shai Aggassi's blog

http://shaiagassi.typepad.com/

[TJensen]

I really want an EV, but the effect on the grid is a real problem that needs to be addressed as well.

[mynameishere]

When I got to "1 to 2 trillion" I stopped reading. I'm pretty sure the treasury blew that much last weekend.